


Before Dawn

by gaygreekgladiator (ama)



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:48:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/gaygreekgladiator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diona learns how to feel again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I went to see the Vagina Monologues last night, and was compelled to write about vagina. Warning, this fic does use the word  
> "c*nt" in a sexual (not misogynistic) context, and has non-explicit references to canonical rape and abuse.

It stopped hurting after a while. A man would enter her, and flesh once soft and thin and easily torn would knit itself together, forming thick callouses like a gladiator’s rough hands, or the puffy smooth skin left after a burn. She feels nothing. No pain. No discomfort. Her body is worn leather, beaten so roughly that it is incapable of breaking.

And then there is Chadara, who teaches her that the skin of her arm is still capable of feeling touches as light as silk. Her skin ripples when Chadara touches her, and when Diona kisses her, her lips feel thick again, but soft like velvet and plush furs. They lie awake at night for hours, and the sensitivity in her fingers returns as she drags them slowly over Chadara’s back, her thighs, her breasts. She feels delicate hairs and tiny moles and scar tissue and patches of dry broken skin.

When Chadara touches her, it is as though her body is reborn. Diona lies back on their bedroll and closes her eyes because she doesn’t think she can bear the sensations—people aren’t supposed to _feel_ this much.

Then Chadara’s fingers rest on the mound between her legs and she opens her eyes and pushes her hand away.

“Apologies,” Chadara says immediately. “I did not mean—”

“It’s nothing,” she says, and she hears the wild hysteria in her own voice.

“I do not mean to hurt you.”

“You can’t. You can’t. I don’t—it doesn’t feel anything.”

Burns and callouses and the dull ache of long-healed bruises. Her cunt is hair and leather, an object of long use and abuse and entertainment. It holds no pleasure; she does not want Chadara to waste her time, while the sun approaches the horizon. Better to spend their time in each other’s arms. Better for her to slip inside Chadara, her newly-made-gentle fingertips stroking her. She can imagine how it feels, soft and wet and warm.

But Chadara does not move. Slowly, thoughtfully, her fingers alight on Diona’s cunt again. She trails them slowly, up and down, but Diona feels almost nothing. _Numb_ she thinks. _They have made me numb_ , and she hates them for it.

Then Chadara’s lips touch her stomach, her hipbones, her thigh. Diona’s skin trembles, and her body feels hot again, despite the fingers still rubbing her. It doesn’t matter her—her whole body feels Chadara’s touch, and it doesn’t matter if a hundred thousand men have ruined her—

Suddenly Chadara’s fingers are inside her, and she inhales sharply at the cold and the surprise, but it’s not unpleasant. She can feel it, feel as Chadara slowly drags her fingers up and down, but it doesn’t hurt. It is not hard and impatient, not painful. Diona’s heart is pounding, her cunt is wet and throbbing, and through her half-closed eyes she can see Chadara smile. Her lips are like thick rose petals and Diona feels the ghost of a kiss on her mouth as Chadara leans down and kisses her clit.

Her hands twist in the fabric, her legs twist around Chadara’s shoulders and she turns her head away. Every muscle tenses, flexing, and her breath comes erratically. One moment she can’t breathe, the next she’s panting _. It’s not supposed to feel like this_ , she thinks again, her mind a dense haze of sensation. Maybe it’s not supposed to hurt, but it’s supposed to be hard, fast and unsettling and insistent.

Her orgasm builds quickly, and Diona lets out a low cry part from pleasure and part from surprise. It’s… delicate. Like sunrise. Her skin flutters and her fingernails bite into Chadara’s shoulders. Chadara’s tongue lazily traces the lips of Diona’s cunt, and then she draws back and presses hot kisses to her stomach. She sits up and kisses Diona’s neck and cheek, where a red blush has spread.

“Do you stand surprised?” she asks teasingly.

“I do not stand at all,” Diona says breathlessly. She curls closer to her lover with a low sigh. “You surprise me always.”

Chadara laughs, and for a moment silently runs her hands over Diona’s body.

“For many years, my cunt was the only part of me of value,” she whispers after a moment. “It took me… too long to realize why. Not because it gives pleasure to men. Because it gives pleasure to me. And you, now. You—you have no idea, Diona, how strong you are. Moreso, when you are whole.”

Slowly, Diona reaches over and grasps Chadara’s hands in hers. She directs the other woman to lie back on the bedspread, her arms spread, her golden hair strewn over the pillows.

“I value you,” she murmurs into the curve of Chadara’s neck and massages into her waist and traces into her calves. “Every fucking inch.”

Her teeth engrave the words on Chadara’s stomach. Her fingers swirl them into her cunt. Her lips whisper them into the shell of her ear as the seconds slip by and the sun creeps closer to the horizon. Chadara breathes out a content sigh, and Diona remembers how it feels to touch warmth.


End file.
